


Valkyrie

by ValkyrieVimes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aromantic, F/M, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyrieVimes/pseuds/ValkyrieVimes
Summary: What would you do if you were suddenly transported into a storybook world, one where you have all the answers? This is the decision Lorelei Smith has to make when she goes from certain death to being unceremoniously dumped in the world of Harry Potter. Try as she might, this new world doesn't feel quite real to her, and the temptation to play with fate is overwhelming. If this is a dream, then that makes her God, doesn't it?Despite her uncertain grasp on reality, real lives hang in the balance. One woman and her dog have the power to turn the world on its head... for good or for ill.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Cracks on the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about an original character, Lorelei Smith, who was mysteriously transported from our world into the Harry Potter world. Consider the Harry Potter bits canon up until the MC arrives, but everything after is liable to change. This story is mostly just something I'm writing for fun, but that doesn't mean it won't take itself seriously. I write original fiction, which means most of what I write are original characters. OCs in fanfiction may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it should at the very least be enjoyable and easy to read.
> 
> That being said, it is rated Mature, and not just for sex. There may be heated scenes later on, but romance will never be my main focus in this story. My main character is aromantic, which doesn't mean she can't form emotional attachments to other people, but does mean she won't form contemporary romantic attachments. The main character is designed to be morally grey, and is NOT a self-insert, though she does share similar interests to me (I want to write a story about a mushing writer, darn it). The narrator may be unreliable at times, and may not always be likeable or make the morally correct choices.
> 
> I am a fan of rationalist fiction and there will be rationalist elements to my story, though I'm not yet confident enough in the genre to call this a rationalist work. As a side note, I love reading people's comments, but am terrible at replying to anything that isn't an outright question. I definitely read them all, though!
> 
> I don't like posting pairing or death warnings, but I can give you this...
> 
> The dog doesn't die. 
> 
> \----------------------
> 
> “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”  
> ― Will Rogers

Instead of water, I fell onto hard ground. Val struggled in my arms, and I let her go at the same time I opened my eyes. Grass. Grass and dirt and a stone wall. No snow. No lake. No dog sled.

I blinked at Val, who seemed just as surprised as I was. She was soaking wet and still had her harness on, and about two feet of tug line, but the end of the line was burnt, and the sled she had been attached to mere moments before had vanished.

“What happened?”

She looked at me, still breathing hard. Her ears perked up when she heard my voice, but she offered no opinion other than that. I felt… shit, I don’t even know. I didn’t feel anything but mild shock. This probably wasn’t real. We had _just_ been running down a snowy trail, then Val had swung out onto the lake to chase after an idiot squirrel, then the ice had cracked and…

Maybe we were dead. Or I was in a coma or something, which probably meant that Val was dead and I was just imagining her. Or this was all a weird dream and when I woke up, we would _not_ go out running by the lake.  
  
I hoped it was the last option. Or even the first, because I’d rather be in the afterlife with my dog than in a coma somewhere with her dead in a lake. At least it would mean there _was_ an afterlife, and that dogs were allowed.

Val’s mouth snapped shut mid-pant and I immediately followed her gaze. We were in front of a stone wall, near an iron gate, and a man was walking down the path on the other side of the gate toward us. I couldn’t tell if he had seen us yet or not. Maybe he was the gatekeeper to the underworld, or just a figment of my dream or coma inspired imagination. None of the options seemed great – shit, if this was a dream, he could be a zombie. I dreamt about zombies a lot, though usually I can also fly or something in those dreams. This all felt too real. Usually, when I realize something’s a dream, I’m able to wake up from it if I want to, but the rocks were still hard under my knees and the air was warm and I could feel the tickle of an ant crawling on my hand.  
  
Val gave a quiet woof, still staring at the slowly approaching man, and I scrambled further away from the gate, in front of the wall, grabbing her harness and dragging her with me. I liked to think that I’m good at thinking on my feet, and sometimes I am. If the dogs get into a fight or a deer runs in front of my car or whatever, I usually don’t freeze up, but right now my brain felt like it was working with only one or two cells. There was snow, and the lake, and water so cold it burned, and Val’s claws scrabbling at me as I tried to pull the weight of her and the sled out of the lake, then the sound of cracking and burning cold water around my legs and my waist and my stomach as I fell through –

I realized I was beginning to panic and forced myself to breathe more slowly, burying my face in Val’s damp fur as I tried to think. She was still straining toward the gate and the man, but I just slipped my fingers around her collar and held on instead of barking at her to leave it.

I had to decide what to do. A part of me was convinced this wasn’t real, because it simply couldn’t be, but at the same time it wasn’t as if I wanted to die in a dream any more than I wanted to die in real life. Treating our sudden displacement as real, even if I was dreaming, would be safer than treating it as a dream in the off chance that it wasn’t. It was kind of like that wager thing about God, but with more immediate consequences.  
  
So, this was real. I decided I had to believe that, even if not all of me was convinced yet, but it made what came next easier.

My dog and I had just been teleported out of a frozen lake to somewhere it was summer – Australia, maybe? – and we were being approached by a strange man while possibly accidentally trespassing. The only obvious next action was to run the fuck away.

Okay, so maybe I was a bit anti-social, but I’d really rather figure out all of this shit on my own, plus society had kind of drilled it into me not to be alone with strange men. And if we really _had_ teleported somewhere, I didn’t want anyone else to know since we’d probably end up vivisected in some government facility somewhere.  
  
I got to my feet, realizing that my pants and boots were still soaked from the lake, and tugged Val’s collar. There were trees a few yards off the path that led to the gate, and I figured we could hide somewhere in there until the man went away.

“Let’s go,” I hissed, pulling her toward the trees. She turned, and I realized my mistake a moment too late as she took off toward the forest. Let’s go was our command for mushing, and she always took off like a shot. I let go of her collar rather than let her pull me over, grateful that she was at least going the right direction, and jogged after her, pushing through the undergrowth and past the first few trees.

  
She trotted back to me soon, looking mildly concerned that I wasn’t being dragged along behind her on a sled or a bike. I patted her side, glad that she wasn’t a husky – those dogs will run forever, which is great for distance races, but not so great for letting them off leash in the woods, and whispered, “Heel.”

She wasn’t great at the command yet, but she did stay vaguely by me as we walked further into the woods. I only went far enough that the path or road or whatever it was wasn’t visible, then found a large tree and some bushes to hide behind. I sat down, pulling Val to sit between my legs, and held onto her collar. The last thing I needed was for her to see another squirrel. I wished I had her leash, but that was still on the sled – and probably at the bottom of the lake.  
  
In fact, most of my survival type stuff was with it. I didn’t carry much with me, since we were only supposed to be doing a couple of miles, but I had a basic first-aid kit – in case Val got hurt – some water – in case Val got thirsty – and one person tent, a knife, and a lighter – in case Val got stupid and ended up stranding us somewhere and we needed to camp out, plus some food, both of the human and dog variety. In contrast, all I had in my coat pocket were my keys and my phone. My wallet was still in my purse, back in my van. It was good that it wasn’t at the bottom of a lake, but bad because it meant I had no ID and no money.

I heard the man shouting something and waited silently, hoping he wouldn’t care enough to come poke around the woods for us. When I heard a clang – probably the gate shutting – and nothing but silence for a few more minutes, I relaxed slightly. It didn’t seem like he was going to come looking for us, at least. Maybe I would go try to find an intercom and call up to the house or manor or whatever was behind the gate and ask to use their phone eventually, but right now I really needed the time to think.

“So,” I said softly to Val. “Did you teleport us out of that lake? Are you part Pokémon or something?” She wagged her tail at my voice. “If you did, could you did it again? Teleport us back. Well, not back to the lake. Back to the van.” More tail wagging as she gazed at me with interest. “Teleport us home?” I tried. “Wanna go home, girl?”

She yipped, which made me wince, but we stayed where we were, sitting under a tree with my damp pants likely making mud out of the dirt I was on. I knew I was probably being dumb, but seriously, _something_ had happened, and I had already decided that this was real, so it had to make sense somehow.  
  
_No it doesn’t_ , I reminded myself. _Real life isn’t a story. Life doesn’t have to make narrative sense. Sometimes things just happen, for no reason and no purpose._  
  
Still, teleportation was big. And if it could happen once, it could happen again. I decided that if Val hadn’t done it – and if she could teleport, I’m pretty sure she would have done it when she wanted to get out of her crate, or out of the yard to catch a rabbit – then maybe I had.  
  
So I sat there, trying to teleport. I envisioned myself sitting next to my van, trying to feel the cold snow on my ass, trying to smell winter in the air. I did such a good job, I half expected to see the snowy parking lot we’d been in a couple of hours earlier, but my eyes opened to the same forest, with Val panting in my face. I even went so far as to stand up and try that twisting thing they did in Harry Potter to apparate, but only succeeded in feeling stupid. I quickly reclaimed Val’s collar after that and leaned against the tree, sighing.  
  
Now I had two conclusions which I had to work from. First, this was real. Second, I wasn’t going to be able to teleport back home.

I had to find out where we were. It must be somewhere in the southern hemisphere, since it was winter at home. That left a lot of places; South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand… I hadn’t been to any of them. I figured South America or Africa would feel more… jungly… but I wasn’t sure. I was hoping for New Zealand, honestly, since it seemed to have the least amount of animals that could kill Val and me, and was just generally kind of small and… nice, judging from the pictures I’ve seen of it. Regardless of where I was, I could probably find an American embassy or something and make my way home from there. I could think about a story while I tried to find civilization. This might be weird and frightening, and it would be embarrassing to admit to the officials that I was stranded and needed help, but I _would_ get home.  
  
All right. My first step was finding out where I was. My second step was finding a library or someplace that had free computers I could use to find an embassy and to email my family. Once I was in contact with them, I’d just have to tell a convincing enough story to the authorities to get me deported rather than arrested. Getting Val home might be a bit more complex due to importation laws, but she had a microchip, so I could prove she was mine, and my vet could supply her vaccination records. Even if it took a few weeks, I was sure I’d be able to get her home too. If they tried to stop me, I’d kick up a big stink on social media and I’m sure plenty of people would offer their help.  
  
Already, I was beginning to feel less panicked. This was weird, to be sure, but it would be okay. We were still alive – we were, I had to believe that – and it would be a neat story to tell. This was the sort of thing that would be super cool to have lived through, even though actually getting through it would be insanely stressful. Plus, teleportation! That meant magic or aliens or God, or _something_ other than boring, every-day life. Just the knowledge that there was something _more_ out there was worth all of the stress, as long as we came out of this alive.

“ _Shit,_ Val, quit it with the squirrels.” I yanked her back, snarling. She gave me a chagrined look, but I wasn’t having it. “This is the third time you’ve tried chasing one in the last twenty minutes. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s what landed us in this mess in the first place.”  
  
I shifted my grip on her collar, wincing. My hand was sore, and I would have given my left shoe for a leash. I knew Val would come back eventually if she took off, but I didn’t want to have to stomp around in the woods calling for her. We were out of sight of that wall and the gate now, though it was slow going since I’d decided to stay in the woods for a while. The path was to our right, and we would rejoin it soon, but I didn’t want to run into someone alone out here. I was looking for _civilization_ , not random strangers.

I loved Val, I really did. She was everything I had wanted – well, mostly, and the rest would come with maturity. She wasn’t even two yet. When I’d seen that litter of Belgian Malinois and saluki mixed puppies posted online, I’d known right away that I had to get one. I drove all the way to freaking Utah two days later to pick her up, a little sable bundle of brown and black with black shading on her muzzle and down her throat. She’s wicked fast and smart, and would make a great dryland dog once she matured a bit, but she also had boat loads of prey drive and wasn’t quite as quick on the obedience side of things as my other shepherds were.  
  
I had gotten into mushing nearly a decade ago. At first it was just bikejoring with the Malinois I had at the time – she was ten now, and hopefully safely still in my house back in the US – but then I got another dog, a German Shepherd, and picked up a sled, and then eventually I added yet another shepherd to my team for some additional horse—er, dog-power. We did sprint races – you need much bigger teams for races like the Iditarod – of just two or three miles, occasionally up to five or six in the winter. The dogs loved it, and so did I, but we were getting smoked by the Eurohounds and greysters – pointers and huskies mixed with sighthounds. I could have gotten a dog that was actually bred for dryland mushing, I guess, but I liked my herders, and a lurcher – the term for a dog mixed with a sighthound for working purposes – seemed like the way to go.  
  
Thus, Val. She’s all drive and energy, which is great until it’s not. She’s got a penchant for killing small furry things, and since that almost got _us_ killed, I wasn’t feeling quite so happy with her at the moment.  
  
Something chittered in a tree above us, and I swear, I have never hated squirrels so much as I did today.  
  
“Fine,” I snapped. “We’re going back to the path.”

It was really more of a road, or a two-track, with deep grooves on either side of a grassy strip. People must have used it for four-wheelers or something, or maybe carriages. I saw some hoof prints – did the Australians have an equivalent to the Amish? I still wasn’t sure where we were, but I was leaning toward not Africa or South America considering I hadn’t seen anything that exotic yet. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t seen anything but squirrels and one rabbit off in the distance – thankfully, Val hadn’t noticed that.

It was easier to walk on the two-track, at least. We were still moving away from the wall and the gate, and I figured this path would lead us to an actual road at some point. There was a lake somewhere nearby, I could smell the water, and I was debating about trying to go through the forest on the other side of where we had been to see if we could find it so at least Val could get a drink when we crested the incline we had been walking up and I saw something even better. A town. A rustic, old-looking town, but still – a town. It had cobbled streets and no cars that I could see, but it was civilization!

“We made it, Val!”

She looked up at me and wagged her tail, her mouth open in a panting, doggy grin. I started walking more quickly and she trotted at my side. I was glad she was so leggy, since it meant I didn’t have to hunch down to hold her collar.

We made it into town without seeing anyone but a cat – I had to drag Val away from it, since cats fell into the definition of small and furry – and I began raking the buildings with my eyes for anywhere that looked public. I probably couldn’t bring Val in with me, but I could stick my head in the door and ask if they had a rope or something I could borrow to tie her up with.

The sound of laughter came from a wood and stone building with its door propped open. There was a sign handing over the door, and I drew closer to see what it said.

The Three Broomsticks.

I stared at it for a second until Val started tugging on her collar towards _another_ cat, and I had to yank her around again. When I looked at the sign again, it hadn’t changed. There were even three crossed broomsticks burnt into the wood of the sign beneath the name. I blinked, squinted at it, then looked around. Was this like… an amusement park or something? Or… well, I knew most of the Lord of the Rings movies had been filmed in New Zealand. Maybe they filmed some of the Harry Potter movies there too and this was an old part of the set? It didn’t look quite like I remembered it in the films, but it had been a while since I’d seen them.  
  
“Val, would you stop it?” I said, irritated, as I had to pull her away from the cat again. It just sat there and hissed at her. “We’ve got shit to figure out. Just… behave.”  
  
I looked up in time to see a broom sweeping back and forth in front of the door. At least I could talk to someone without trying to stick my head inside while holding onto Val.  
  
“Excuse me…” I began, but trailed off when I noticed that no one was holding onto the broom. It was sweeping on its own.


	2. Falling Through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I believe in integrity. Dogs have it. Humans are sometimes lacking it.”   
> ― Cesar Millan

The broom was sweeping on its own. Sweeping. On its own. As in, no one was holding it. The broom was sweeping on its own in a pub called The Three Broomsticks.

“Shit, Val,” I breathed. “Shit, shit, shit.”

My heart was pounding, and my stomach twisted. My hands felt sweaty. Anxiety’s a bitch, but at least I was used to it. I pulled my dog around the side of the building and leaned against the wall on the other side of a stack of wood, trying to do my deep breaths. They weren’t working, probably because it was hard to breathe deeply when I felt like I wanted to cry.  
  
This wasn’t real. I had been telling myself it was ever since my breakdown by the stone wall, mostly just to keep myself going, but the lie felt even more hollow now. I didn’t want to be dead. I didn’t want Val to be dead. But what other explanation was there? Hell, maybe I was still drowning and this was just one last, weird fantasy my brain tried to kick up so I wouldn’t suffer.  
  
I wanted this to be real, to have just randomly teleported across the world with no explanation and I could find my way home in a week or two. I could have dealt with that. But this? Magic isn’t _real._ Even though I spent most of my time in fantasy worlds, I knew that. I _wanted_ it to be real, of course I did. That was one of the reasons I liked writing so much; I could make whole worlds where magic was real, where everything happened for a reason, where everything made _sense,_ even if it involved dragons or aliens or werewolves.  
  
But it wasn’t. And seeing it in front of me made me realize that whatever I was experiencing, it wasn’t real either. Which meant that when I woke up from this – _if_ I woke up from this – I would have to deal with the aftermath of The Lake, and whatever that would entail. If this wasn’t real, Val would still be hooked to that damn sled, and she’d be under the water and the ice and not _breathing_ –

“Fuck.”  
  
I felt a warm tongue on my face and realized I had slid down the wall so I was crouched behind the wood. Val licked me again, and instead of pushing her away, I hugged her to me. Then I cried.

I hated crying. It was embarrassing, just like asking for help was. I didn’t like feeling weak, but thinking of my dogs dying cut deeper than almost anything else. And even worse, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have taken her out alone. I knew she wasn’t ready for it. I should have turned back after the first two miles. I should have stopped while it was still going well. I should have known better than to keep telling myself _just one more mile, just one more._  
  
“Pardon me, miss, but are you okay?”  
  
I looked up at the voice at the same time Val looked around and started barking. I grabbed her by the muzzle and hissed at her to be quiet, then awkwardly struggled to my feet, using Val’s back to leverage myself up. She was still grumbling at the woman, and I smoothed her hackles down automatically as I gazed at the person in front of me through teary eyes. She was wearing an old-timey dress and had light brown hair drawn back with a ribbon. She looked like she was in her mid-forties, and was a bit plump.

“M-Madam Rosmerta?”

It was the first thing that came to mind, given the Three Broomsticks sign and the fact that my brain had apparently decided that my dying wish was to see the Harry Potter world up close and personal.

She laughed, though not unkindly. “No, dear. I’m Sue. Sue Sutherton.”

“Oh.” The unfamiliar name seemed to derail my brain, because I literally could not think of anything else to say. She must have thought I was crazy. Heck, maybe I _was_ crazy. Maybe that broom I’d seen had been animatronic or… something. I should have thought of that before my breakdown. In my defense, it had been a terrible day.

“Rosmerta’s inside. Would you like me to fetch her for you?”

I just stared at her.

“It’s just, I saw your face while you were standing in the doorway, and you looked so frightened. I wondered if maybe you saw someone you’re trying to avoid. If… well, do you need me to call the aurors for you? I hope I’m not intruding, but Rosmerta likes us to keep an eye out for witches that are in trouble. We don’t see much of that at the Three Broomsticks, of course, but we’ve helped a few people avoid men they’d rather not see. There’s a floo in the kitchen, I could take you around back…” She trailed off, sighing. “I’m babbling, aren’t I? The gist of it is, if you need anything, we can help you. So long as you aren’t on the run from the law or something.”

Maybe the broom was animatronic, and these people were _really_ dedicated to playing their role. I’d heard of a place like that in another state, where they set up this whole medieval town and everyone who came in had to wear period-specific clothes and stay in character.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?”

I realized I’d been staring at her silently, but I still couldn’t think of what to say. This was what I’d wanted, though, wasn’t it? To find a town and figure out where I was and where to go next. This woman seemed nice, at least, and she was offering help. But how should I spin it? Throwing caution to the wind would be dumb, so even if part of my brain was having a melt-down, I’d better stick to my whole act-like-this-is-real thing for now. That still left me with two options; this was either a _real_ Harry Potter themed amusement park, or this was the _real_ wizarding world. Either way, staying in character, as it were, and pretending this was really the wizarding world would probably be the best course of action. Worst case scenario, they’d just think I was really dedicated to roleplay.

“I could… use help,” I admitted at last.

“Oh, American, are you? You poor thing, no wonder you look so lost. Were you travelling with someone?”

I shook my head and chose my words carefully. I’d been super into Harry Potter roleplay when I was about fourteen, so if I could just bring that mindset back now… I really wish I’d used my time walking through the forest to come up with a good story instead of cursing Val and all of the squirrels.

“I was attacked,” I said. I could sense the beginnings of a plausible tale. “My dog saved me. I got lucky, but they took my wand. I panicked and apparated, but I don’t know where to. I can’t usually apparate without my wand, and I don’t have any money…”

I trailed off, trying to look pitiful instead of terrified and on the verge of going completely insane. Of course, if this really was a theme park, I’d probably sound insane, but whatever. Lesser of two evils and all of that.

“Why don’t you come inside? I’ll get you a drink and something to eat on the house, and we can put a floo call in to the aurors.”

Shit, shit, aurors. “Do we have to do it right away? I’m exhausted and I really didn’t see much of the person who attacked me. I don’t want to have to talk about it right now, not so soon after it happened.”

“You can take as much time as you need, dear.” She patted me on the arm and gestured toward the front of the building. I began following her, then hesitated.

“Um, can my dog come in?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “Things must really be different in the states.”

“Yeah. You have no idea.”

The inside of The Three Broomsticks was rustic, for lack of a better word. I’d never really been to a normal pub, let alone one in England, and definitely not one in the wizarding world, so I didn’t have much to compare it to. The floor was wood and worn, and the only light came from windows and torches in wall brackets. The tables all had candles or lanterns, but they were unlit. There was a dark fireplace against one wall, and the broom was still sweeping by itself, though it had moved away from the door. I didn’t see any real sign of magic, and the people all looked relatively normal, though they were all wearing cloaks, robes, and dresses. Val was very interested in the stew the people nearest the door were eating, and I kept a firm grip on her collar.

Sue deposited me at a table near the bar and disappeared into the back. I convinced Val to lie down half under the table and stuck my foot through her harness so she couldn’t get up. Or at least if she did, she’d take me with her. My coat, which I had taken off a while ago, I draped over the back of another chair. My phone was in its pocket. It had no service, and I didn’t want to fiddle with it in here.

“Here you go, dear.”

Sue had reappeared, though the suddenness was probably more to my degrading state of mind than any magic, and deposited a pint of something foamy in front of me, followed closely by a sandwich.

“Butterbeer and roastbeef. Do you have butterbeer in the states?”

“Um, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never had any.” Technically the truth. It was the safest form of lying.

“Well, you’re in for a treat. Can I get you anything else?”

“Could I have some water for my dog?”

I felt bad asking for it; even having Val in the pub felt strange to me. Back home, only service dogs were allowed in restaurants, and they certainly didn’t get to eat or drink while inside. But Val had just pulled me on a sled for two miles, and then had hiked with me to town in weather that was suddenly fifty degrees hotter than what we were used to.

“Of course. I’ll be right back.”

Sure enough, she returned soon with a bowl of water, which she placed in front of Val. My dog happily drank, and I took a sip of the butterbeer. It was… good. Room temperature, which was weird, but I guess I was supposed to be in the UK and ice cubes weren’t as popular there, for some reason. It was less cloyingly sweet than I’d expected, but still heavier than a soda.

“I’ve spoken to Rosmerta,” Sue said, taking a seat across from me. “We can put you up in one of the rooms tonight – free of charge, of course – and in the morning one of us will sit with you while you talk to the aurors.”

I fiddled with my sandwich, suddenly feeling bad. She was being so _nice._ I wasn’t used to it. Not that I was surrounded by terrible people at home or anything, but if some damp, crying girl and a dog showed up outside a bar at home, the staff would probably call the police right away. Maybe after letting her inside, if it wasn’t in the shady part of town.

“Thanks,” I said, blinking away the feeling that I was going to start crying again. I wasn’t usually this tearful. “That’s really… just, thanks.”

She smiled at me. “Everything will be okay. You just eat up, then I’ll show you to your room. You can take a shower, get cleaned up, have a rest, and the world will look like a much brighter place tomorrow.” A small group came in through the front door and she got up from her seat, then paused. “Oh, I almost forgot. Can I have your name?”

“Lorelei,” I said. “Lorelei Smith.” I reached down to pat Val, who had finished with the water and was snuffling around for crumbs. “And this is Valkyrie.”


	3. The Water Closes Over My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things; first, I'm using the real-life calendar for historical years. I know JK's dates don't always line up with the right days of the week, but I'm not going to try to figure out her system. Second, I couldn't find Rosmerta's first name anywhere, so I made one up. If anyone happens to know it, feel free to comment and I'll change it.
> 
> \-------------------
> 
> “We all make basic assumptions about things in life, but sometimes those assumptions are wrong. We must never trust in what we assume, only in what we know.” 
> 
> ― Darren Shan

I couldn’t stop touching Val’s new leash. When I’d asked if I could borrow something to use as a leash for her, Sue had brought out a spare bit of rope, and then waved over a guest from another table.  
  
“I’m pants at transfiguration, but Bells got straight Os in it all throughout school,” she had said, then she quickly asked the other woman if she could make me a leash.

The woman, Bells – I had to guess it was a nickname, though who knew. Weird names were the least of my concern just then – pulled out a polished stick of wood, considered for a second, then waved it around and muttered something that sounded vaguely like Latin. Right in front of my eyes, the rope formed a loop on one end, and somehow grew a metal clasp at the other end, making a rope leash.

I managed to stammer out a thanks. Once I had clipped the new leash onto Val’s collar, Sue led me upstairs and left me to get settled in my temporary room.

But I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t stop fiddling with the damn leash. It wasn’t flashy magic by any means, but it was the first thing I’d seen that I knew definitely wasn’t animatronic or something like that. This wasn’t a theme park. There was no question of that anymore.

Val was curled up on the foot of the bed, alternating between snoozing and watching me silently whenever I moved. The room itself was small, with a single bed, a small desk against one wall, and a window that looked out into an alley between buildings. I’d peeked into the even smaller bathroom, but other than that hadn’t done much but sit on the bed and stare at the leash.

I’d still held out some hope that I was still in my world and would be able to find my way home soon, but the leash had finally driven home the fact that I was somewhere _else._ Unless there really was a secret magical society hidden away in the real world, but I doubted that. After the Harry Potter books had been published, surely _someone_ would have found _something._

I felt… blank. This was so far outside of the realm of anything I’d ever had to deal with that every time I tried to think about what to do next, my thoughts just fizzled out. We were about to drown in a frozen lake, and then we were here and magic was real and nothing made sense.

I needed to write. Not fiction, though I was sure I could come up with some _great_ stories after all of this. I needed to get my thoughts down somewhere where they wouldn’t keep getting muddled by the waves of panic that repeatedly crested in my mind.

I dropped the leash on the bed, stared at it for a second longer, then stood up and walked over to the desk. Most hotels I’d been in, even the really shitty ones, had stationary and a pen, and this place turned out to be no exception… except the stationary I found in the drawer was a scroll of something that was probably parchment, and the pen was an inkwell and a feather.

I tried my hardest to write with it, I really did, but it took me nearly five minutes to get two words in, and they were blotchy as hell. I ran out of ink after what seemed like every letter. It would take forever to get anywhere, and trying to write with a quill was _more_ stressful than just letting my thoughts wander around inside the mess of my brain.

Reluctantly, I walked over to the trunk at the foot of the bed, where I had folded up Val’s harness and my coat, and reached into the coat pocket for my phone. It only had about half its battery left when I last checked it, and I didn’t want to run it all the way down with no way to charge it, but I needed some way to organize my thoughts and actually focus on what I was going to do next.

I pulled out my now-useless key fob, tossed it on the bed next to Val, and shoved my hand back in for my phone, but my fingers brushed something even better. A cord.

I pulled it out with shaking hands. It was one of the basic white cords that came with iPhones, and I sort of remembered putting it in my pocket the last time I went into my sister’s house because my phone had been almost dead and it hadn’t charged enough in the car. I had completely forgotten about it, and had even bought a new cord for my car, but there it was. A charging cord. Without a wall plug, just the little USB plug on the end, but that didn’t matter. The wall plug wouldn’t have worked in the UK anyway. With this, all I had to do was find some _real_ civilization, beg a charging adapter from someone, and I could charge my phone.

It might seem silly, since when I pulled my phone out it _still_ didn’t have any service, but my life was on that thing, even without any internet. All of my books, even the unpublished ones, were saved on it, along with my various lists, music, recipes, phone numbers, email addresses, and photos. It was my last real connection with home, my last link to sanity and reality.

I almost cried when I found that charging cord.

Feeling a bit more secure now that I knew I could keep my precious phone alive, I flopped back down on the bed and opened up my notes app to create a new note, which I titled _What The Fuck Is Going On?_

Then I proceeded to type up everything that had happened, starting with the ill-fated run with the sled by the lake and ending with the stupid quill and parchment. I felt better once I had it all in front of me in text form. Writing had always been cathartic for me, and writing out my problems was one of the most sure-fire ways to deal with anxiety that I knew of. Thankfully, it worked even in this extreme situation.

“All right,” I said aloud. I lived alone, and had long since been in the habit of talking to my pets or, failing that, to myself. “What do I know for sure?” I started a list.

  * _Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. Whatever happened, I’m still aware and am still myself. I am real, even if nothing else is._
  * _This place I’m in feels real. I can feel the bed beneath me, smell the scent of food cooking, hear people talking down in the restaurant part of the pub, and I could taste the butterbeer and sandwich._



Of course, that didn’t mean any of this _was_ real. All of my senses were processed and experienced via my brain, so it could still be some sort of weird, super-vivid hallucination, but when I bit my cheek it hurt. It would be safest to treat this world as a real place that could hurt or kill me.

  * _Val is here._



That wasn’t something I was actually sure of, but it was something I wanted to believe. I didn’t want her to just be a part of my brain’s last hurrah. I decided to treat it as true as well, if only for my own comfort. Val was the rock that would keep my sanity tethered. I highlighted the words and bolded them. Val was important.

  * _Magic is real here._



After seeing the leash and the broom, it was pretty much indisputable. Plus there was the whole teleportation thing. Magic was at least as real as this world was.

And… that was it. All I had to go on was that I was real, Val was real, and that I had to treat this world, including magic, as real. It was a start, but it wasn’t great. There was still so much I didn’t know. Was this world based on the Harry Potter books, or would they be considered fiction even here? What about the muggle world? Were historical events congruent with my world? If so, did that mean that me and my family existed here? If this was an actual alternate dimension, then was there a way back home?

That last one was the most important. I bolded it.

Doing some research should be my first priority. I didn’t know much about what happened in the Harry Potter universe past the epilogue, and since it was 2024, I was already beyond that. I could probably ask Sue about it – I was from the US, after all, so it wouldn’t be too suspicious if I didn’t know every detail about what had happened her in the UK – and figure out whether or not the Harry Potter books were accurate regarding the wizarding world’s history. The rest of my research involved the muggle world and would require an internet connection. Once again, Sue and the staff at The Three Broomsticks would be my best hope for that. Maybe they could send me through the floo into London or something.

Of course, that would mean staying to talk to the aurors first. I _really_ didn’t want to do that, especially now that I knew magic was a thing here and they weren’t all just LARPing fanatics. I was tempted to just take off on foot with Val, but I didn’t actually know where Hogsmeade was in relation to any real – or muggle – towns. I’d probably just end up starving to death in the Scottish Highlands or something.  
  
All of that meant that I needed help, and to get help, I would need to talk to the aurors first.

I nearly fell over when I walked into the bathroom and the mirror talked to me. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to get any of the lights to work, so when I had to pee, I ventured into the little windowless bathroom with my phone’s screen to guide the way and a voice said, “I hope you’re not planning on going out looking like that.”

I screamed and backpedaled, right into the doorframe. Val came rushing off the bed and pushed past me into the dark bathroom, her hackles up all along her spine. The mirror cackled.

It didn’t take me too long to put two-and-two together, but remembering that the Harry Potter universe had _talking mirrors_ didn’t do much to stop my heart from pounding. I turned on my phone’s flashlight and looked into it, nearly blinding myself in the process.

“What the hell?” I managed to get out once I was able to form something more coherent than a scream.

“Language!” the mirror snapped. I couldn’t see a face or anything in it, but the voice was definitely coming from there. I inched forward and pulled the frame away from the wall, half expecting to see a speaker or a room with some creepy dude watching be through the glass behind it, but there was only blank wall. Except then the mirror started to scream.

“Thief! Thief! I’m being stolen! Help!”

“Shut up!” I shouted over Val’s sudden barking. To my surprise, the mirror obeyed, though maybe that was just because I’d let go of the frame.

“I’m not stealing you,” I said, feeling weird to be talking to a mirror.

“Better not be,” the mirror grumbled. “You have mud on your rear, by the way.”

“I know.” I rubbed my face, reminding myself of my four absolutes. I am real. Val is real. Treat this world as real. Magic is real. This weird, talking mirror fit in with what I knew about the world. I wasn’t going crazy.

I also still had to pee, and there was a talking mirror in the bathroom. How was this normal? I didn’t want to use the toilet or take a shower in front of something that could _see_ me.

“Your hair could also do with brushing.”

“Can you just… be quiet?” I asked.

The mirror didn’t respond. I stared at it for a second longer, then returned to the bed and took a sheet off of it. When I draped it over the mirror, I got a muffled, “Hey!”

“Sorry, but I don’t want you to watch me undress. It’s weird.”

There was more grumbling, but it was unintelligible and eventually the mirror fell silent. Once I was sure it wasn’t about to start screaming again, I used my phone’s light to examine the bathroom more closely. The toilet looked normal, thank goodness, as did the shower. There were a couple of corked glass bottles in the shower with labels that read, _Witches Best Friend Hair Potion,_ and _Witches Best Friend Cleansing Potion._ I wondered, vaguely, why they didn’t have wizard’s versions, but decided I was done trying to figure stuff out for now. I wanted to take a shower and do my best to clean my pants and let my boots dry, then maybe get some sleep. It was getting dark outside, and it had been a long day. I had a faint hope that when I woke up, I would be in my own bed, and all of this would just be a quickly fading dream.

I was a bit disappointed by the complimentary potions in the shower. They just acted and smelled like normal shampoo and soap, though with a stronger herbal smell than what I normally used. The hair potion seemed to have some sort of built in conditioner, and my hair was pleasantly tangle free when I went to bed, even though I could only brush it with my fingers.

When I fell asleep, I had left my pants draped over the back of the chair near the open window in hope that they would be dry by morning --I had done my best to scrub the mud out of them -- and my boots were on the windowsill. When I woke up, my pants were dry and folded on top of the trunk at the foot of the bed, along with my boots and my bra, which I had tossed on the floor before going to sleep.

The sight filled me with a cold sort of fear, followed by a crashing panic and horror as everything that had happened the day before came back to me. I wasn’t home. I wasn’t in my own bed. I was in another world, and someone had been in my room during the night.

The feel of Val’s warm form beside me was the only thing that kept me from completely freaking out. She was laying with her back pressed to my side and her long legs sticking out over the edge of the bed. Her nose was pressed up against a pillow, and she made soft snorting sounds as she slept.

How on earth had someone managed to sneak into my room, take my clothes, clean them, and return them without waking either of us up?

 _House elves_ ¸ my brain helpfully supplied. The thought was only marginally less creepy than the thought of a person doing the same thing. Something sentient had still been watching me while I slept. I was just glad the covers were still over me, since I was only wearing my shirt and panties.

I got dressed, poked around in the bathroom in the hopes of finding a complementary toothbrush, then slipped my phone into my pants pocket and clipped Val’s leash to her collar before opening the door and stepping out into the hall – and nearly colliding with Sue.

“Oh!” She reached out a hand to steady me. “You’re up. I was just coming to check on you. Are you feeling better today?”

“Yes,” I said, managing a smile despite the fact that it was a lie. “Thank you so much—”

“There’s no need to thank me, dear,” she said warmly. “Now that I know you’re up, I’ll get you some breakfast and then we can put in that call to the aurors.”

“Okay.” I had resigned myself to the fact that I probably had to talk to them to get any more help from Sue and whoever else worked here. “I just need to take my dog out first.”

“Of course. You go right ahead, and I’ll get your breakfast sent up. When you’re done, just pop on into the kitchen and if I’m not there, someone will fetch me or Rosmerta for you.”

The Three Broomsticks was nearly empty when I went down, with only one, shrouded figure sipping something sludgy looking at one of the tables. I hurried past and let myself out the front door, Val tugging eagerly at her leash. I had to stop once we were outside and just breathe in. It was beautiful; it was early enough that there were still some clinging wisps of mist, and the air was the freshest I’d ever experienced. I heard children laughing somewhere off in the distance, and faintly, the sound of a dog barking. It really did feel like another world – and this time, a better one.

I took Val around back and let her do her business in a patch of weeds, then ambled slowly back around to the front to go inside. I realized halfway up the stairs that I should have asked for another bowl of water for Val and maybe some meat scraps or something, but when I opened the door to my room, I found that Sue had thought ahead. There were two bowls on the floor, one filled with water and the other with chunks of meat. I unclipped her leash and let her go at it while I focused on my own breakfast. There was a folded newspaper next to my tray – the Daily Prophet! – and I glanced at the moving pictures with interest, but a quick scan showed me that none of the articles were about anyone I knew from the books. I’d read it more later. I just wanted to get the meeting with the aurors over with, which meant finishing my breakfast and going back downstairs.

There was porridge and some sort of square sausage, but that was all I recognized. I tried bits of everything, but only managed to finish the porridge. I sled the remains of the rest onto Val’s bowl, then ventured into the bathroom and took the sheet off the mirror.

“Don’t you own a brush?” was the first thing it said.

“Not currently.” I eyes my hair and dragged my fingers through it. It was surprisingly not frizzy, but since I had gone to sleep with it wet, it had dried with strange kinks in it. It was brown and about shoulder length and straight-ish, though air drying always gave it unsymmetrical waves. It was as good as it was going to get, though, and I left the mirror to do its thing while I talked to Val.

“I’m going to leave you up here,” I told her quietly as she licked her bowl clean. “I don’t know how jumpy aurors are, and I don’t want to have to worry about something happening to you if you decide to bark at them. I don’t think I’ll be too long, so be good, okay?”

I pet her, my hand shaking slightly. I really didn’t know what would happen when I talked to the aurors. Would they see right through my story and arrest me or obliviate me? What would happen to Val if they did? Sue seemed nice; she would probably at least make sure Val found a good home, but I didn’t want to lose my dog.

“Be good,” I repeated in a whisper, grabbing her head and pressing a kiss between her eyes. I stood up, hesitated, then slipped my phone under the mattress. If they searched me or my room, it was the one thing that would identify me as not-a-witch right away.

I slipped out of the room, trying to ignore the way Val was watching me leave, and shut the door quietly behind me before walking toward the stairs. I was moving slowly, trying not to let my nerves get the best of me and make me puke up my breakfast, which was the only reason I caught the conversation that was happening at the bottom of the stairs before stepping on the first creaky step.

“… a canine or possibly a canine and a person.” The man who was speaking paused and made a considering sound. “Or possible a canine who turned into a person. The disturbance happened during the late afternoon yesterday, and my caretaker was the first to respond. He said he saw something that looked like a dog outside of the gate, but it had gone by the time he got there.”

“Do you usually investigate every apparition that happens just off the school grounds, Albus?” The woman who answered him had a warm, though unfamiliar, voice. It was the name that she said that made my heart nearly stop, though.

Albus. As in Albus Dumbledore. And Val and I had apparently appeared right outside of the Hogwarts grounds which, in retrospect, felt blindingly obvious. I was in _Hogsmeade,_ of course Hogwarts would be nearby.

“Ah, but it wasn’t a simple apparition, Rosalee. All of the alarms tied into the protections around Hogwarts went off at once. They quieted soon after, but it’s enough to raise my interest.” A pause. “Besides, I fancied a stroll this morning. It’s a lovely day.”

“I see,” the woman, Rosalee, muttered.

“Whoever was behind the alarms is likely long gone by now, but if you do hear of anything…” He trailed off. I wished I could see him. Albus Dumbledore!

Wait, wasn’t he supposed to be dead?

“There was someone,” the woman said. “A woman and a dog. One of my staff, Sue, she found them outside The Three Broomsticks yesterday evening. She said she was attacked. We gave her room and board for the night, and she’s going to put in a firecall to the aurors soon.”

“So she’s still here?” Dumbledore’s voice was kindly, but he seemed much more interested now.

“She should be just upstairs.”

Shit. I backed away from the stairs as quietly as possible and then scurried to my door, pulling it open and shutting it behind me in a flash. I turned the lock and looked at Val with wide eyes.

“This is not good.”

Aurors were one thing. They were scary, but not Albus Freaking Dumbledore scary. There was no way I could lie to him, not if he was anything like he was in the books. Speaking of…

I hurried over to the table and grabbed the newspaper, hurriedly folding it back to the front page. When I saw the date, everything else seemed to blur. I let it slip out of my fingers and stood there, staring blankly into nothing.

According to the newspaper, it was Sunday, July 2nd, 1995.


End file.
